


Weary of the Pretense

by daphnerunning



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Tiger & Bunny
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Anal Sex, Crossover, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:52:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/pseuds/daphnerunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prosecutor Yuri Petrov is assigned a most unusual case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weary of the Pretense

**Author's Note:**

> what the fuck am I even doing.
> 
> this was a dare.

Yuri eyed the young man, not entirely certain what the District Attorney expected him to do. _Be his legal representative,_ the man had said. _You want to work with NEXT when you make Judge, right? Here’s your chance to work with a really strange one._

Strange and powerful, Yuri had to admit. He’d seen the man, whatever his absurd name was, exhibit rather stunning telekinesis. Yet he’d denied anything of the sort, claiming that he was just another ordinary person. Obviously, wherever he was from, they didn’t have as many cameras as they did in Sternbild.

“I’m sorry, you said your name was…”

“Dumbledore,” the young man said. He had a lean, earnest look about him, soft auburn hair down past his shoulders, and a trim little beard of the same color. But his _clothing_ ; even for some of the Heroes Yuri had known in his day, the elegantly stitched suit of what looked like vermillion-colored velvet was outlandish. “Albus Dumbledore. And you are?”

“Yuri Petrov. I’ve been assigned your case.”

Albus raised his fine eyebrows, gazing at him with intent blue eyes over wire-rimmed spectacles. “My case? Have I been charged with a crime?”

He spoke with a light British accent—educated, Yuri judged, but with a strange inflection, the kind one acquired from growing up in a small, isolated village. “Not…precisely.” Yuri frowned down at the paper, as if willing it to make more sense. “I see you possess the power of telekinesis?”

“Of course not. Such a thing wouldn’t enable me to traverse time and space, now would it?”

 _Possibly possesses two powers,_ Yuri scribbled on the notepaper. His father had mentioned something about a NEXT with two powers.

“I’m sorry, have I said something wrong?”

“Hmm?”

“You suddenly looked distressed. Shall I remove myself?” He cocked his head, poised as if at any moment, he could vanish.

Yuri was certain that dealing with this character was going to give him a headache. “Not at all. Please have a seat. Would you care for some tea?”

“Oh, by any means necessary.”

“At least we can agree on one thing,” Yuri muttered under his breath, and fetched a second cup from his shelf.

“Oh, no honey.”

Or not.

“I’ve brought my own sweets, you see,” the young man said, producing a strange striped candy stick from one of his sleeves.

Of course he had. Yuri poured both cups of tea, then leaned back against his desk. He had to admit, he was quite taken aback by the new arrival. “Where are you from, may I ask?” _And is it possible to send you back there immediately, if not sooner?_

Dumbledore’s eyes sparkled as if he’d spoken aloud. “A small village in England, doubtless too miniscule to attract the attentions of so busy a man as yourself. But if I might inquire, what exactly is a NEXT?”

Yuri’s eyes narrowed. Was the man joking? “A NEXT is a human born with atypical abilities,” he informed the man without emotion. “They began appearing in the nineteen-thirties—“

“Ah, that would be the reason I’ve not heard of them.”

“Oh? What, are you a hermit?”

“Not yet, I don’t think, but I haven’t ruled it out as a future career prospect. No, I merely state that it would be quite impossible, since until yesterday I was happily inhabiting the year nineteen hundred and four.”

There it was: the Moment. Yuri recognized it instantly, as did Dumbledore. Their eyes met, each watching to see the other’s reaction. Then, very deliberately, Yuri nodded. “Very well. Do you intend to stay?”

“Stay?”

“Clearly some accident has occurred to propel you into your own future. If no means of return can be secured for you, do you wish to remain in Sternbild?”

The young man’s mouth twitched beneath that silly little beard. “I haven’t yet been given a reason to leave.”

Suddenly, Yuri wanted to give him a reason to stay.

*

Yuri didn’t need the DA to tell him to show Dumbledore around Sternbild. He would have in any case, just to be closer to the mystery that was his red-haired friend. 

“Certainly I’d be delighted,” Dumbledore said when Yuri showed up at his hotel room. “But don’t you have work to finish?”

“It never takes me more than an hour to do the day’s work,” Yuri confessed. “I just push it around for hours so they don’t think I’m showing off.”

There was something in those light blue eyes—recognition? Something kindred, at least. Albus was almost shy when he admitted, “I spent my first two years of school doing much the same thing.”

“What happened then?”

Albus cast his gaze around the city lights and skyscrapers of Sternbild, inhaling foreign air. “I grew weary of the pretense. I’ve never been much of a one for pretending.”

There was something frank and forthright, yet not innocent at all, in the way the other man spoke. Yuri judged him to be perhaps his own age, maybe a year or two shy of twenty-five, yet he spoke like one who had seen much of the world. 

Yuri showed him the sights, opting for public transportation because it fascinated his companion so. Despite his personal dislike for spending time in the sun—matching skintone to foundation was difficult enough without bringing a tan into it—he showed Albus the parks, the theatre district, the Opera House. Albus was engrossed by each new sight, though no more so than by storm drains and electric lighting. 

At the top of the Justice Building, they looked out on the vast city as the sun sank behind the ocean. “How many?”

Yuri knew what he was asking. “Twenty million.”

“All crowded together like that. How do they survive it?”

“They pick their favorite people, I suppose.”

“And you?”

The wind picked up, pulling several strands of Yuri’s hair free of its ribbon. Albus’s own streamed out behind him as he braced his hands on the railing. “I’m still choosing my favorites,” he said at last.

“Mmm.”

What did that noise mean? “What of you? Have you left behind your own favorite people?”

There—the flash, that kindred spark. _He’s lost someone. Not just lost. He’s been betrayed. Can he see it in me?_

Albus smiled, a little sad, then shook his head as if banishing the emotion. He stepped close, tucking Yuri’s hair behind his ears. “I grow weary of the pretense,” he said softly, and followed it with a brief, warm brush of his lips against Yuri’s.

Later, Yuri noticed with a start that his scar hadn’t hurt at all that day.

*

“Dear, you must have more.”

Albus gladly took the food Mrs. Petrov served, and seconds, though Yuri never saw him eat much of it. There was a twitch of his wand—the silly prop he needed to use his NEXT powers—and the food vanished from his plate.

He’d not minded meeting Yuri’s mother—no, even more, _wanted_ to meet her. There was genuine softness in his expression when he looked at the old woman, and it made Yuri smile. He hadn’t thought he could smile anymore, not without sarcasm.

His mother turned then, screaming obscenities, shattering his fragile peace.

Albus didn’t run away. He knelt next to her, humming an old tune under his breath, never once reaching for that wand of his.

 _He’s done this before_ , Yuri realized, helping his friend get his mother to bed. 

“Who is she?” he asked later, watching the fire over two cups of tea.

Albus sipped his own, blasphemously unsweetened. “My sister.”

“The same?”

“She was.”

Yuri didn’t miss the tense.

*

“And these Heroes, they keep the peace? Openly?”

“They hunt criminals.” The slightest hint of a sneer crept into Yuri’s voice as he continued, “They pose for cameras. They accept money for their services. They put on entertainment, endorse products for purchase, and wear revealing costumes to keep public interest. They claim to be servants of justice, but they’re seekers of fame.”

“Is that why you aren’t one of them?”

“Of course not,” Yuri snapped, though his heart beat faster. “All Heroes are NEXT.”

Albus looked at him, just looked. Yuri felt his control waver. Albus had a way of seeing through things, to the very heart of them. “What?” 

“Shall I say it aloud? Don’t you grow weary of the pretense?”

He did, Yuri suddenly realized. God, he was so tired of pretending. His hand clenched with the urge to bring it to his suddenly burning face. “How?” he asked, finally.

Albus’s voice was soft, softer than the spindly fingers that brushed Yuri’s hair back. “There’s great power in you, my friend. Even one un-gifted could feel that. But you don’t seek authority with your power.”

“I…”

“Why? Does the spectacle not appeal to you?”

Yuri swallowed hard. What would really be the harm? Albus knew no one but him, would never be believed if he did speak up. And something in the other man’s gentle kisses and bright-eyed joy made Yuri think he could be trusted, even when he’d sworn to trust no one.

“My power isn’t for helping,” he said, voice quavering. He’d never spoken of his power, not to anyone. Idly, he traced one finger through a patch of stone on the fountain, leaving a blazing trail of blue-green flame in its wake. “All I’ve ever done with it is hurt someone I loved.”

Albus’s hand closed on his, totally unafraid of the fire. “So you suffocate it. You deny yourself the chance to atone for your accident.”

Yuri met his eyes. “What makes you think it was an accident?”

 _There—_ once more, the flash. The recognition. The shared, agonizing guilt. The long-fingered hand tightened on his. “It was,” Albus said, quiet and fierce. “You must believe it.”

 _I must? Or you must?_ “Who?” Yuri asked. 

Albus flinched, startled. “I…”

“I grow weary of the pretense,” Yuri snapped. “If I’m to trust you—“

“My sister. She was…unwell.” Albus swallowed, Adam’s Apple bobbing up and down in his throat. “She saw what she should not have, wandered where she should not have. Trusted who she should not have,” he finished, and Yuri knew even before he saw the tears that Albus meant himself.

“Was it painful?”

“No. Instant.”

Yuri raised an eyebrow. That was more power than Albus had admitted to having earlier. “You can do that?”

“It…it may not have been me. There were others there, casting spells. My brother. And another.”

Him. Yuri had heard of Him before, in passing, as _someone I knew_ or _a friend I had in the past_. 

Yuri told his story. The beatings. The fire. The Legendmobile in the background.

And Albus told his. The furtive meetings in the attic. The impassioned letters. The betrayal, ugly and swift.

Yuri felt raw when it was over, ragged and aching, as if he’d been crying for days. 

Without a doubt, he knew with a single look that Albus felt the same.

*

The first time, there was far too much hair. Yuri’s ribbon had never been able to handle the strain of excessive movement well, and it slipped out the first time Albus buried his hand in it. Yuri had never been able to persuade Albus to tie his back at all, and spent the first several kisses pulling long red strands away from their mouths. 

Albus’s eyes looked bigger without his spectacles. They looked massive staring up at him as he leaned forward, taking Yuri’s cock into his mouth. 

Albus’s tongue was like the rest of him, long and slender and talented. It wrapped around his cock, stroking as Albus sucked him and delicate fingers ran up and down Yuri’s thighs.  

Yuri’s legs threatened to give out, and he knew it was ridiculous to have started standing. “On the bed,” he muttered, and pulled out of Albus’s mouth with a soft “pop.” 

Albus smiled wide with delight as he bared Yuri’s body, and his cheeks reddened a little as Yuri did the same to him. It felt obscenely good just to lay together, pressed skin to skin, sliding slender bodies entwined on the cotton sheets. 

Albus bucked up against him, hard and urgent and unashamed. “More,” he breathed, then took his own advice. His hands were as insatiable and curious as his mind, skimming over every part of Yuri’s body, tweaking, teasing, pinching, stroking. Yuri was struck by a sudden image of what those fingers would feel like inside of him, and his breath shook as he spread his legs involuntarily.

Albus took the hint, ducking down to take his cock in his mouth again, slicking up his fingers with spit at the same time.

“Here,” Yuri said, breathless as Albus—good god, Gellert must have been an excellent coach—did _things_ with that long tongue. Yuri wiggled around, using the opportunity to adjust Albus’s body as well until he could get his lips around Albus’s cock. 

It was lovely, slender and pale, flushed red at the tip, a good inch or two longer than his own—but that didn’t surprise him. Everything about Albus was of a type. He let it slide in between his lips, and almost choked as Albus’s hips jerked forward. He couldn’t blame the other man, was so close to doing the same thing himself.

He _did_ , as those perfect fingers slid inside him. He bucked, a low moan emerging around Albus’s cock, and buried his own down Albus’s throat. 

He was so hard it _ached_ , and Albus was leaking all over his tongue as he swallowed and licked and looked for _more_. He was pretty sure he was getting better than he gave, what with that tongue curling around him, those fingers pressing in so perfectly, and the distracted pathetic way he was endeavoring to suck Albus off. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t do anything but thrust his throbbing cock into Albus’s mouth, push back on those fingers, whimper helplessly as he tried to bring Albus off with his hand around the base, his other hand stroking the lightly furred balls.

Albus flicked his tongue over the slit, and Yuri lost it. He let Albus’s cock slip out of his mouth, crying out, spilling inside the other man’s mouth, hips jerking up hard as the spasms of pleasure overtook him.

Boneless, he let Albus turn him onto his stomach, slide up behind him, and push in. He groaned low, shivering in overstimulated sensation as red hair fell across his shoulders, as hot flesh filled him, making him burn and pant and writhe on Albus’s cock. 

Albus was quiet, gentle pants and breaths coming faster, not louder, as he thrust into Yuri’s willing body. He came at last with a hard slap of his hips and a whispered, “ _Merlin,_ ”soft in Yuri’s ear.

He moved for his wand, and Yuri put a hand on his.

“What are you going to do?”

“Clean us up.”

Yuri debated telling Albus he preferred it this way, preferred to be sweaty and sticky and _filthy_ with the scent of his lover, but smiled instead. Albus could be finicky sometimes, and there were worse vices. 

After a muttered spell, Albus cast a second. “Put out your hand?”

Yuri did.

After another word, a blue-green rose bloomed in his palm, edges shimmering with barely-contained fire.

*

Albus vanished one day. Literally. They were walking to the Justice Bureau, Albus demanding that if Yuri didn’t want to walk hand-in-hand they could at least walk _close_ , when there was a brisk “pop” and Yuri was arguing good-naturedly with empty air.

He stopped, stared, waited, but Albus did not return. He’d been in the middle of a sentence, too. Albus hated unfinished sentences.

Then, he tucked his hair behind his ears and went into work. Albus wouldn’t keep him waiting for no reason. Obviously, he’d been spirited back to his own time. They’d known it could happen at any moment. Yuri put away the second teacup, sat at his desk, and tried to keep his hands from shaking as he looked at his paperwork.

*

 _Godric’s Hollow, 1904_

The skyscrapers were gone, the smells of exhaust and crowds replaced with the noise of woodlarks and chimney fires. A young red-haired man looked around, then sighed. As he went into the house he knew would never be locked against him, he ran a thumb over a length of gray silk ribbon, tucked into his pocket. Inside, he made a pot of tea, taking a single cup off the shelf.

Just for the sake of what would never come again, he dropped in a dollop of honey.


End file.
